AMD Athlon X4 845 Review: A Perfect Budget CPU For Gaming And Multitasking

[Lyfer]

With a GTX 1080 sure, with the GTX 750Ti it will not even have more than 1-2 fps difference in the vast majority of games.

I beg to differ. I am to lazy too find benchmarks but a lot MOBA titles and blizzard titles just favor Intel camp with 10-20fps differences.

 

[SpaceBeer]

Since when was Excavator old? They only released it last year. It's the newest uarch AMD has on the market.

Just a new iteration of Bulldozer

 

[DrMrLordX]

Just a new iteration of Bulldozer

Just like Skylake is a new iteration of Nehalem?

 

[Arachnotronic]

Just like Skylake is a new iteration of Nehalem?

Sandy Bridge brought some gigantic changes from Nehalem, so I wouldn't agree that this is a correct analogy.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Sandy Bridge brought some gigantic changes from Nehalem, so I wouldn't agree that this is a correct analogy.

So should I have said "just like Skylake is a new iteration of Sandy Bridge" instead? The point still stands. XV is its own microarchitecture . . .

 

[Madpacket]

Just save up $110.00 - $120.00 for an i3-6100 and a sub $100.00 Z170 board like the AsRock Z170 Pro4S. Bump it up to 4.5/4.6Ghz and pair with some cheap 2666 RAM (although I recommend 3200Mhz Trident Z's if you can spend the extra $20).

This will give you a system that practically outperforms any AMD CPU for gaming, it'll even outperform a mildly overclocked Core i5 Haswell or stock Core i5-6600 Skylake. It'll also be on par with the Core i5's for energy usage when the i3's overclocked. These i3 Skylakes really come into their own paired with high speed RAM. Core i5's and i7's don't really benefit as much. Now that DDR 3200 has come down in price this is a very feasible way to get the best bang for the buck.

If the i3 becomes to slow in a few years for gaming (doubtful) sell it for $90 and pick up the latest quad core Kaby Lake.

Oh and Intel may have strong armed motherboard manufacturers from allowing bclock overclocking via removal of feature from newer BIOS's (why do you think Intel did this?) but you just need to downgrade to a slightly older BIOS to get back SkyOC functionalities (in AsRock's case). Works great and a $20.00 aftermarket cooler is enough to keep a core i3-6100 cool while overclocked which you would want anyway for any CPU you're overclocking.

 

[Arachnotronic]

So should I have said "just like Skylake is a new iteration of Sandy Bridge" instead? The point still stands. XV is its own microarchitecture . . .

I would say the biggest change gen-to-gen among the 'Dozer family would be Steamroller. Piledriver was a cleaned up Bulldozer, and XV looks like a cost/area optimized SR with some perf/watt and perf/clock gains.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Fair 'nuff. XV certainly isn't a warmed-over Bulldozer, though. Doesn't make the 845 a great buy.

 

[Arachnotronic]

Fair 'nuff. XV certainly isn't a warmed-over Bulldozer, though. Doesn't make the 845 a great buy.

Agreed on both counts.

 

[Dresdenboy]

I would say the biggest change gen-to-gen among the 'Dozer family would be Steamroller. Piledriver was a cleaned up Bulldozer, and XV looks like a cost/area optimized SR with some perf/watt and perf/clock gains.

I think that nails it.

I have to look at the die photos again to see, if they also changed the design methodology a bit with SR (i.e. more synthesized blocks).

 

[dark zero]

Carrizo ended to be a step back from SteamRoller and even Richland. AMD got stuck in a vicious cycle that needs to get out as soon as possible.

 

[The Stilt]

Excavator is much more than a cost optimized Steamroller. Unlike Steamroller it is almost fully functional and it has a modern and functional power management. The power management in Steamroller is basically the same as on 1st gen. Bulldozer, with some additional features glued on to the top. Steamroller shouldn't have ever happened D:

Do note that I'm talking whole design wise, not the µarch wise.

 

[Bryf50]

Carrizo ended to be a step back from SteamRoller and even Richland. AMD got stuck in a vicious cycle that needs to get out as soon as possible.

How so? Carrizo is one of the more impressive things to come out of AMD in a while. Huge improvement over Kaveri at low power consumption.

Have a look at this review. http://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-EliteBook-745-G3-Notebook-Review.158278.0.html 20%+ improvement over Kaveri.

 

[jaamanitsme]

People,i have this cpu in my second build,and believe me this shit is fine for gaming on a budget i paid 240 euro in total(live in belgium) bought myself a cheap ass mobo 50 euro second hand gpu r7 260x then 2sticks of 4 gb 1600 mhz ram and i must say im impressed,gta 5 for example 1080p on high settings getting around 50fps without any dips fallout 4 1080p medium to high settings around 45fps with dips sometimes around 35 fps this all measured with fraps believe if your looking for a second build this is perfectly fine,oke it cant touch intel my main build is a intel 6600 skylake with a r9 390x and this thing is tha bomb butt you cant go wrong with a cpu from 60 euros maybe if i find the time i trow some benchmarks on youtube

 

[DrMrLordX]

If it works for you, then great. Enjoy your product. The main problem the 845 has as a gaming chip is that Steamroller chips like the 860k and 880k can actually outperform the 845 at the same clockspeed in some games, which really shouldn't happen. The 845 can really clean up in other benchmarks. Hell it's a SuperPi beast.